Rousseau

Arsenal could play here all day and not score; brutal performance. 

Neville said on commentary, for all their issues Arsenal always at least played good football, but they don't even do that anymore.

Dammit.

Jinxed it with the Gif...

Brother Madden...

2 minutes ago, Bluedell said:

I'd have thought that either Morelos or Cummings could drop back into the Windass position without too much difficulty. 

They could, but they're not the same type of player; they would naturally drift up top, leaving us exposed in the middle.

Also, Cummings doesn't do the running the other two do. Morelos can run, but doesn't have the control or vision. 

Docherty -- and to lesser extent Murphy -- are the only ones I can see as being direct replacements for Windass; and both were on the pitch or had already been subbed (?).

This is just my opinion, of course...  

4 minutes ago, cooponthewing said:

touché..........

It wasn't even a foul by that 'well player...

Regardless of the maths, I don't see it either.

11 hours ago, cooponthewing said:

He has still to impress me against substantial opposition in my book. Hibs, Hearts, C****c and for the most part Sheep at home he has been below expectation. Add to that his disappearance v Motherwell in semi when it got rough.

 

If you want to champion his ability to score against what most would describe as lesser opposition, I can’t argue. He has performed exceptionally well at smaller grounds and weaker opposition.

11 hours ago, Gonzo79 said:

Has he scored against any of the top 5 yet?

He's scored against Hearts, Aberdeen and Hibs, as well as assisting against Aberdeen (twice) and Hibs; he's directly contributed to 6 goals against the top-5 -- we've not actually scored against Celtic so he's no better or worse than the rest of our players in that regard. 

What you're saying is (Coop), 'I don't like him, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will convince me otherwise, so I'll continue to make things up to suit my baseless opinion'.    

15 hours ago, boabie said:

Morelos creates chances for other players. Even if he isn't scoring I think it's always better to have him on the park.

Windass has been scoring recently but it was obvious early on that today just wasn't for him. We'd have been doing him a favour to take him off at half time and reassure him he'd get another chance next week.

15 hours ago, pete said:

I agree with what you are saying but when you are trying to talk Morelos into staying and being happy at the club and he was better than Windass then it would have been better subbing him.

Whether you thought WIndass or Morelos was better on the day is irrelevant (not much in it for me). I think it's just a normal sub to freshen things up. We have a direct replacement for Morelos -- he does fade out of games towards the end, and had ran his game -- in Cummings, but we don't have a ready replacement for Windass, or at least not without changing the system; it would've been negligent on Murty's part to change things too much when we were doing so well. If we bring in a ready replacement for Windass then we'll see him getting subbed earlier when he's not on his game.

The table's looking a lot nicer.

If only we'd taken an extra few points earlier in the season...

#WindassLoyal 

We have this problem with players over the long-term too: when they don't do anything in 1-2 games, they're 'shite', we want them out; that's too soon. It's taken Windass a season to get into this goal-scoring form. Most would've had Tavernier sold after 2 games; he's now arguably our best player. 

Patience.

Windass was anonymous the first half, but the second half he was everywhere. He just couldn't score; it just wasn't his day. 

This is our problem: we want him shafted after 20 minutes, then for him to score goals and create dangerous chances. He was poor first-half, but he was at the heart of every decent move in the second. 

Just now, Big Jaws said:

1 -0 up and should have had a pen when Morelos gets to the ball first in the box and Berra kicks him from behind. Free kick to Hearts whut?

I thought it was a penalty as soon as I saw it; it's even worse from the replay. The only defence is that it was close; perhaps too close at full speed?

We're playing well; aggressive, dynamic going forward, look like we can score. 

I don't like our vertical compactness; the distance between Morelos and the CBs seems too big to me, which may cause problems when Hearts break, giving them too much space in between the lines. But, we've done well.

Morelos needs to work on his heading. 16 goals for a guy that can't head the ball is unbelievable! That's something we can improve.

10 minutes ago, buster. said:

The thread title would suggest it Murty's best bet.

 

IMO Docherty was ok last week. He gave away possession too easily and too much for him to finish much above even.

The positive was he was hungry to get involved.

That was only early on, really; for the majority of the match has was good. (He gave the ball away 2-3 times? But he won the ball back much more than that.)

He was a little more defensive than I expected, but that looked to be the role he was assigned.

I think that's pretty much our strongest line-up. 

Docherty was good last week and deserves to keep his place.

This is the type of game in which we need to do better: Good, hard, organised defensive teams at Ibrox. We've struggled at Ibrox, and the signings in January were geared towards overcoming this obstacle. It'll be a tough game, but I'm really looking forward to this!

I find it funny how we always seem to say 'this game's a must win', like it's a unique situation; when in fact every game is 'must win'. Win or lose against Hearts today, the next game will still be 'must win'.

I'm not going to consciously boo any player, but a few expletives may stumble out now and again, incidentally.  

I tuned into the Dumbarton game to see Wilson (who didn't play) and Burt (was quite lively, and almost changed the game, although not perhaps through his direct involvement; looks a tricky wee player -- very wee though), so I'll do the same here. 

I've not actually seen much of Hardie.

Lafferty, no; Naismith, yes. 

Simple.

I caught the reaction in the BT studio afterwards -- I was waiting on the Atalanta-Dortmund game but it'd already started on the other channel, just to analyse what went wrong, or how Celtic were wronged -- and I can't believe how good they think they are? Hartson totally believes the hype: 'Zenit were just an OK side; Celtic are better; it was bad management, but I don't blame St Brenda, the players managed it badly etc.' 

I hate it when English sides assume their more 'famous' team should be beating a team not as well known, just through that alone; when often that other side are quite good. Atalanta-Everton was a good example: they expected a simple win for Everton, but anyone who's watched Atalanta would tell you it was not an easy tie -- they just dropped out against Dortmund after leading for most of the tie. But, this 'hype' around Celtic is worse; they are so far up their own arses it's unbelievable. 

Zenit are a good side -- not what they were, but a good side -- especially at home. Just because you've played well and they haven't, and you've sneaked a 1-0 at home doesn't mean the tie is a given! Mental.